When it comes to building a recipe—and then making adjustments to get exactly the flavors you want—there is no family of beers as complex and as rewarding as stouts. Here are the levers and dials you need to know.
Opening your fermentations to a wider array of yeasts and bacteria can add great complexity to your beers. It can also add complexity to your brewing process—but the challenge is both surmountable and rewarding.
Belgium’s dark, strong ales are among the most complex and impressive beers in the canon—yet extract brewers can tackle them as well as anyone, as long as we pay attention to a few key points.
Long dismissed as gimmicky and relegated to a bit part, fruit beer has never gotten the respect it deserves. Yet the craft of brewing with fruit is poised to enter a golden age, with a bag full of tricks and seeds planted to grow much wider appeal.
Extract brewing provides a more-than-capable canvas for getting creative with the unusual fruits that arrive this time of year. Annie Johnson breaks it down.
Attention, busy homebrewers: Here’s a straightforward method for getting three different types of beer out of a single batch on brew day. It’s like the Cerberus of shortcuts... but which styles will you choose?
Even homebrewers who consistently ace their ales can get intimidated by the prospect of fermenting a lager. Here, Josh Weikert demystifies what makes it different and shares advice from some pros.
Brewed since 1988, Bell's founder Larry Bell has called Cherry Stout the complex “pinot noir” of his brewery’s range. Its origins, however, are far simpler: It all started at homebrew club meetings in Kalamazoo.
Few experiences in brewing are more rewarding—or make for better practice—than bringing some undersung, underloved, old-fashioned beer styles to life in your own brewhouse. Josh Weikert makes the case for learning, drinking, and brewing the canon.